Travel Guides

Aki Ra's Landmine Museum

The Aki Ra Museum, often simply called the Cambodian Landmine
Museum, provides a jarring counterpoint to the ancient Khmer
glories on display at Angkor Wat by showcasing the more recent
horrors of Cambodia's political and social upheavals. This museum,
founded by Aki Ra, a former Khmer Rouge child soldier, provides a
clear and compelling account of this troubled time, and the
appalling legacy of landmines and unexploded ordinance that are
still a blight on the lives of Cambodian people today. Despite
ongoing efforts to find and defuse these sleeping weapons, it is
estimated that about five million still remain. Aki Ra himself
deactivated over 50,000 of them, many on his own initiative. The
museum contains hundreds of these landmines, and many other
weapons, and provides a useful service by teaching visitors and
locals how to recognise these devices and what to do should they
encounter them. The museum exists primarily to tell Aki Ra's
fascinating story, and to gain exposure for the Cambodian struggle
with landmines, but it is also home to a number of children
supported by the museum, who are all victims either of landmines,
disease or simply poverty.

Address: Located four miles (6km) south of Banteay Srey Temple, within the Angkor Wat Archaeological Park